“Hancock,” the latest star showcase for Will Smith, has him playing a SkidRow drunk with superpowers and a super hangover. He does well, but there are always consequences, like when he saves a man whose car is about to be struck by a train, but causes a train wreck. What he needs is a good PR man. Luckily, the man whose life he saved is exactly that. He’s Ray Embrey, and Ray has a brainstorm: He’ll repay Hancock by giving him a complete image makeover. The movie has a lot of laughs, but Smith avoids playing Hancock as a goofball and shapes him as serious, thoughtful and depressed. Embrey the PR whiz brings Hancock home to dinner to meet his wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), and son Aaron (Jae Head). The first time she meets him, Mary gives Hancock an odd, penetrating look. Also the second time and also the third time. OK, OK, already: We get it. One odd, penetrating look after another. They have some kind of a history, but Hancock doesn’t know about it, and Mary’s not talking. She has a lot to keep quiet about, although thank goodness, she eventually opens up or the movie wouldn’t have a second half. I will not reveal what she says, of course, because her surprise is part of the fun. I am willing to divulge some of the setup, with Ray coaching Hancock to start saying “thank you” and “you did a good job here,” and stop flying down out of the sky and crushing $100,000 cars. Ray also gets him a makeover: Gone is the flophouse wardrobe, replaced by a slick gold leather costume, and Hancock gets a shave, too. Does it himself, with his fingernails. He appeared some 80 years ago in Miami, as far as he knows. He doesn’t know very far. He has no idea where his powers came from, or why he never grows any older. He can fly at supersonic speeds, stop a speeding locomotive, toss cars around, and in general, do everything Superman could do, but not as cleanly, neatly or politely. Part of his reform involves turning himself in to the law and serving a prison term, although the chief of police has to summon him from prison to help with a bank hostage crisis. (In prison, there’s a guy named Man Mountain who must not read the papers, or he would never, ever try to make Hancock his victim.) It’s not long after the bank hostage business that Mary reveals her secret, Hancock starts asking deep questions about himself, and the movie takes an odd, penetrating turn. This is the part I won’t get into, except to say that the origin stories of superheroes consistently underwhelm me, and Hancock’s is one of the most arbitrary. Even Mary, who knows all about him, doesn’t know all that much, and I have a shiny new dime here for any viewer of the movie who can explain exactly how Hancock came into being. Not that it matters much, anyway. I guess he had to come into being somehow, and this movie’s explanation is as likely as most, which is to say, completely preposterous. Still, “Hancock” is a lot of fun, if perhaps a little top-heavy with stuff being destroyed. Smith makes the character more subtle than he has to be, more filled with self-doubt, more willing to learn. Jason Bateman is persuasive and helpful on the PR front, and it turns out that Charlize Theron has a great deal to feel odd and penetrating about.

The FBI is the lead organization for investigating terrorist attacks on U.S. interests abroad. And when an insidious, two-bomb attack on an American oil-company compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, kills 100 and wounds 200 more, hard-charging FBI agent Ronald Fleury can barely restrain his zeal to inspect the carnage—more specifically, to bring its terrorist masterminds to justice. Fleury and his team of three forensic specialists—Janet Mayes, Grant Sykes and Adam Leavitt—have a scant five days to piece together the who and the what of the brutal bombing. And it’s hardly a textbook investigation. The chaotic quest for truth that ensues (marred by, among other things, another terrorist strike, inept officials, the cultural divide and the Americans’ own arrogance) feels like one part CSI: Riyadh, one part Black Hawk Down.The lone bright spot in the investigation is a gruff-but-dedicated Saudi police officer, Col. Al-Ghazi, who serves as the team’s liaison. He equips the agents to navigate the intricacies of Saudi culture and, gradually, after a rough start, he and Fleury become close friends and risk their lives for one another. Themes of family, friendship and courage permeate The Kingdom. Both Fleury and Al-Ghazi are shown as fathers who care tenderly for their children. Talking with students at his elementary-age son’s school, Fleury describes the birth of his son as “the best day of my life.” Underscoring that sentiment, two poignant scenes show the FBI agent talking to the surviving children of parents who’ve been killed. Fierce bravery is a characteristic of Fleury’s team in general, especially in the film’s conflict-filled climax, where the Americans are doggedly committed to pursuing the terrorists. Likewise, a principled FBI director stands up to bullying by a mean-spirited U.S. government official. Kindness is occasionally evident in the team’s actions, such as when Mayes gives candy to a little girl who’s just witnessed the shootings of several people. Al-Ghazi convinces government officials to stop torturing a police officer he knows is innocent. Technically, he bends some rules to give Fleury’s team access to the information they need; but his willingness to do so is framed as an act of courage in the face of stifling bureaucracy and restrictive Muslim laws. Fleury returns the favor by convincing a Saudi prince to give the officer more investigatory power.

Whether or not you think it’s appropriate to dramatize, for a movie audience, the real-life horror of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and the manhunt that followed, there’s no getting around it: Peter Berg’s Patriots Day is bluntly effective. Berg—director of pictures like Lone Survivorand Deepwater Horizon, and also a producer, writer and actor—has an affinity for tackling dramas adapted from real life, often with a macho bent. Patriots Day, muscular and confident, falls right in line with Berg’s other work. And you might feel a little dirty after watching it, as if you’d been granted access to real-life suffering and tragedy that perhaps should have remained private.But the movie isn’t easy to dismiss, thanks to Berg’s skillful direction. He knows how to give chaotic action sequences a discernible logic—even when hell breaks loose, visually, he gives us plenty to hang onto. And even though the story told here is horrible in its essence, Berg shows great restraint in telling it calmly and clearly, with minimal sensationalism. He’s in tune with the city and its people—the movie was filmed on location in Boston—and he treads carefully when there’s a chance he might exploit or offend. Patriots Day isn’t perfect, but it’s a movie made with care and thought.Near the start of the picture, we see a half-dozen or so individuals starting out on what will become a fateful day: Watertown Police Sgt. Jeffrey ugliese (J.K. Simmons) starts the morning by getting a Dunkin Donuts muffin for his wife, chatting cheerfully with the young woman behind the counter. A young Chinese immigrant, Dun Meng (comedian Jimmy O. Yang), talks to his parents back in China, using his phone to show them the fancy new SUV he’s just bought. Mark Wahlberg plays a composite character, Boston Police Sgt. Tommy Saunders, a plainclothesman who’s been put on Marathon duty by his boss, Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman), and is none too happy about it. And a sullen man with a blank face, Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Themo Melikidze), watches a video showing a group of men preparing an explosive device, while his younger brother, Dzhokhar (Alex Wolff, in a quiet, jaggedly affecting performance) lurks nearby, looking as if he wants to say something but doesn’t dare. When he finally expresses what he’s thinking, in a stammering stream of words—he’s been “thinking, like, about Martin Luther King”—Tamerlan cuts him down savagely. Berg takes every thread of the impending drama firmly in hand. We know what’s going to happen, but we’re not quite sure how.

What to say about a war film whose outcome is evident in the title? In the case of Lone Survivor, you commend the outstanding job done by writer-director Peter Berg in telling the remarkable true story recounted by Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell in his book of the same name. In 2005, medic and sniper Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), Lt. Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), gunner’s mate Danny P. Dietz (Emile Hirsch) and sonar technician Matthew “Axe” Axelson (Ben Foster) were deployed to the Afghan mountains as a surveillance team for Operation Red Wings, a mission targeting Taliban commander Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami) and his fighters.

The movie doesn’t go much beyond cliché in establishing the camaraderie among these SEALs while in training. But once on duty, Berg (Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) proves a virtuoso at showing how action defines character. And Wahlberg, Kitsch, Hirsch and Foster add to the impact.

The story changes course when the four SEALs, hidden on the mountain slopes, are seen by three unarmed Afghan goatherds. Are they Taliban? And if so, should they be executed to save the mission? Murphy, the ranking officer played with subtlety and power by Kitsch, follows conscience, not tactics, and persuades his team to let them go.Then what? Ambush, is what. After the youngest goatherd runs down the mountain to inform on the SEALs, Taliban forces, numbering 140, gather on a ridge and start shooting. Cut off from HQ and badly bruised from rocks and branches while rolling downhill, the four SEALs take their own share of casualties. But they are fatally outnumbered. The bravura filmmaking in this sequence is astounding. But Berg’s real achievement is keeping the human element front and center as Luttrell watches his comrades picked off one by one, despite a daring helicopter rescue attempt.

All praise to Wahlberg for a performance of shattering ferocity and feeling, especially so when Luttrell, at his most vulnerable, is offered protection by an enemy father and son. Berg rightly lets the people trump the politics. Like the best war movies, Lone Survivor laces action with moral questions that haunt and provoke.